audit(1M)

Name

audit– control the behavior of the audit daemon

Synopsis

audit-n | -s | -t | -v [path]

Description

The audit command is the system administrator's interface to maintaining the audit trail. The audit daemon can be notified to read the contents of the audit_control(4) file and re-initialize the current audit directory to the first directory listed in the audit_control file or to open a new audit file in the current audit directory specified in the audit_control file, as last read by the audit
daemon. Reading audit_control also causes the minfree and plugin configuration lines to be re-read and reset within auditd. The audit daemon can also be signaled to close the audit trail and disable auditing.

Options

-n

Notify the audit daemon to close the current audit file and open a new audit file in the current audit directory.

-s

Notify the audit daemon to read the audit control file. The audit daemon stores the information internally. If the audit daemon is not running but audit has been enabled by means of bsmconv(1M), the audit daemon is started.

-t

Direct the audit daemon to close the current audit trail file, disable auditing, and die. Use -s to restart auditing.

-vpath

Verify the syntax for the audit control file stored in path. The audit command displays an approval message or outputs specific error messages for each error found.

Diagnostics

The audit command will exit with 0 upon success and a positive integer upon failure.

See Also

Notes

The functionality described in this man page is available only if the Solaris Auditing feature has been enabled. See bsmconv(1M) for more information.

The audit command does not modify a process's preselection mask. It functions are limited to the following:

affects which audit directories are used for audit data storage;

specifies the minimum free space setting;

resets the parameters supplied by means of the plugin directive.

For the -s option, audit validates the audit_control syntax and displays an error message if a syntax error is found. If a syntax error message is displayed, the audit daemon does not re-read audit_control. Because audit_control is processed at boot time, the -v option is provided to allow syntax checking of an edited copy of audit_control. Using -v, audit exits with 0 if the syntax is correct; otherwise, it returns a positive
integer.

The -v option can be used in any zone, but the -t, -s, and -n options are valid only in local zones and, then, only if the perzone audit policy is set. See auditd(1M) and auditconfig(1M) for per-zone audit configuration.